|
Post by dem bones on Jan 23, 2009 21:49:22 GMT
I'm not sure when exactly these were published - late-nineties? - but at the time Benedikt Taschen's publications seemed to be keeping the UK's Remaindered Books industry going single handed and whenever a new title was forthcoming they'd issue miniature, 64 pages sample versions you could pick up along the Charing Cross Road for £1 a time. Content? Decidedly kinky, ranging from the often very bloody Fem-Dom fantasies of Eric Stanton and a three volume set comprising the entire run of John Willie's daring 'fifties publication Bizarre (a huge influence on Vampira's dress style) to the relatively restrained American Pin-Up and Eric Kroll's self-explanatory photo album, Fetish Girls. They also publish some very nice books on European architecture and gardening.
|
|
|
Post by allthingshorror on Jan 23, 2009 21:57:47 GMT
The first cover reminds me of something - and I apologise for going out on a weird tangent.
I once came across some loose photocopied pages in a strange second hand bookshop years ago - but never picked it up as I was quite shocked by the content. It was about women who's idea of heaven was to be impaled through the bum and out the mouth then to be spit roasted on a nice fire and then eaten. The drawings were very well done - but I'll be buggered if I can remember who it was tha did it. The owner of the shop said that the artist was very well respected, and had done some others.
Any ideas?
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jan 23, 2009 22:06:56 GMT
It was about women who's idea of heaven was to be impaled through the bum and out the mouth then to be spit roasted on a nice fire and then eaten. ... but I'll be buggered if I can remember who it was tha did it. Unfortunate turn of phrase in the circumstances, John. I've no idea of the artist but from your description it's possible he was "inspired" by a scene in the unlovely Cannibal Holocaust?
|
|
|
Post by allthingshorror on Jan 23, 2009 22:25:04 GMT
Found it - though after posting the link I'm not sure if I should. It's REALLY out there. So ave deleted the link. If you want to look for it though - type in Dolcett Necrobabes into Google.
|
|
|
Post by carolinec on Jan 23, 2009 23:36:18 GMT
That image you're describing, Johnny - it's the same as illustrations I recall seeing about Vlad the Impaler, or the "real" Dracula. There was a thing on telly about him a while ago. Apparently, he used to impale people who annoyed him, or his enemies, or something like that. I don't think he ate them afterwards though, but I could be wrong ...
|
|
|
Post by severance on Jan 24, 2009 0:21:08 GMT
That sixth image, bottom right, is an example of the strange fetish of Art Frahm - there's a great website here about the effects of celery on knicker elastic
|
|
|
Post by Craig Herbertson on Jan 24, 2009 4:49:39 GMT
I'm afraid it was one of these - you've got to look threads...
I recall a story that The Turkish army was approaching Vlad intending to subdue him but were turned back purely by the smell of the impaled victims - presumably a lot of them. I also believe he forced people to have lunch beneath the impaled and when a bloke complained...well you can guess. Overall I'm guessing he wasn't top of your good guy Christmas list
|
|
|
Post by pulphack on Jan 24, 2009 18:43:08 GMT
Taschen's 25th anniversary present is to have a number of their titles at only £6.95 - a long way from their remaindered days, but still pretty good. there's a 'Mens Adventure Magazines' title that has some great pulp covers from sex and sadism mags, with lots of girls with guns and men batlling giant land crabs. and so forth. highly recommended.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jan 24, 2009 20:02:24 GMT
Oh yes! This is unquestionably what it's all about! Thanks for the tip off, pulps! Mens Adventure Magazines I just found another Eric Stanton booklet in the murkiest corner of my bookcase, but i'm not sure if the board is ready just yet for Sadie and Vanquisha versus the former's husband in the touching story of Don's Degradation: A Tale Of Two Newlyweds (Stantoon, NY: undated)
|
|
|
Post by carolinec on Jan 24, 2009 20:17:04 GMT
Now I'm wondering about that headline at the top of the first cover you've posted there .. "Self test: How normal are your sex needs?" Hmmm, I wonder how some of you folks would score on that test?
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jan 24, 2009 20:23:37 GMT
Hmmm, I wonder how some of you folks would score on that test? It doesn't really bear thinking about, does it?
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Jan 25, 2009 18:56:45 GMT
Those Men´s Adventure covers are so great. Sick, twisted, but great. Today it is quite unthinkable to see stuff like this at the newsstand. Of course the content can´t keep up with the artwork or the lurid headlines. The few stories I read were quite awful.
I have bought "It´s a man´s world" by Adam Parfrey, a big hardcover. Wonderful stuff. I guess the Taschen volume is surely also a nice one.
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jan 25, 2009 21:39:48 GMT
Those Men´s Adventure covers are so great. Sick, twisted, but great. Today it is quite unthinkable to see stuff like this at the newsstand. Of course the content can´t keep up with the artwork or the lurid headlines. The few stories I read were quite awful. I have bought "It´s a man´s world" by Adam Parfrey, a big hardcover. Wonderful stuff. This one Andy, right? Adam Parfrey (ed.) - It's A Man's World: Men's Adventure Magazines: The Post-War Pulps (Feral House, 2003) From the Last Gasp site: A lurid and hilariously manly collection of art from men's adventure magazines. Includes Man's Exploits, Rage, Escape to Adventure, Wildcat, Battle Cry, and kajillions of other 35-cent magazines, with art showcasing guns, planes, cowboys, outlaws, soldiers, more guns, Nazis, ferocious animals, skimpily-dressed girls, skimpily-dressed girls with ferocious animals (no kidding, there's one with a girl in a skimpy torn dress being attacked by a wild boar), skimpily-dressed girls with whips, still more guns. Did you know that the title of Frank Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh album came from a men's pulp? Really. The cover art's in this book, and it's hysterical. A big hardcover book, loaded with color (and some black and white) illustrations, plus some informative text. "THE MOOSE WENT MAD!" Adam Parfrey's the guy who, as 'Rudolph Grey', edited ..... Rudolph Grey - Nightmare Of Ecstacy: The Life And Art Of Edward D. Wood, jr. (Faber & Faber, 1992, 1994) The Blurb: This is the story of film-maker Edward D. Wood, jr., who was dubbed 'the worst director of all time' for his low-budget cult features. This is a tale told by those who lived and worked with him - a motley collection of dead-beats and losers whose lives were spent on the fringes of Hollywood. The book traces Wood's life from the glory days of Glen Or Glenda?, Bride Of The Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space to his eventual decline, wracked by alcoholism and reduced to writing and directing porn, and in the process the book evokes a fallen, nightmarish world in which there is no-one to shed any life or hope.
Yet, for all that, Wood emerges from the swamp of pop-culture's lowest depths as a true visionary. These eyewitness accounts of his life and times are both pathetic and endearing, and the book itself is a perfect compliment to Tim Burton's celebratory film, Ed Wood. The story is told entirely in interviews with Wood and surviving members of his entourage which at various times included the drug addicted Bela Lugosi, Swedish wrestler turned celluloid monster Tor Johnson, black-listed horror hostess Maila 'Vampira' Nurmi, Dudley Manlove, Criswell the Psychic, Dolores Fuller and a variety of colourful characters. Much of it is laugh-out-loud funny, and you get the impression that everybody had a great time working on the films but there's plenty abject misery to balance this out and the chapters detailing Ed's booze-fueled decline are often just plain unbearable. Thanks, Franklin!
|
|
|
Post by David A. Riley on Jan 25, 2009 23:13:00 GMT
Thanks for the information about the Ed Wood book. I've just ordered myself a copy through Abe Books. Ed Wood is a fascinating character, who I would like to find out more about. The Tim Burton film is a brilliant appetiser, but like any film version of a person's life I know it contains a lot of "imaginative" alterations and embellishments, which I would like to counter with something, hopefully, a bit more factual. This sounds just the thing!
David
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Jan 25, 2009 23:32:50 GMT
I knew I should have given Nightmare In Ecstasy a thread to itself! Maybe when you've read the book, you'd like to start one? It's been a year or two since I read it, but from the old place -
"I think the book works brilliantly as the feel-bad antidote to the movie, kind of like its evil twin. Which isn't to say that Nightmare Of Ecstasy is depressing (it has its moments but, overall, its still strangely uplifting), more that it bears some resemblance to real life. I mean, you stick a fading, drug-addicted Hollywood star and an ever-struggling, very troubled alkie director together and what is likely to happen? Something that really intrigued me was Ed writing a script for a Tod Slaughter-inspired movie, Heads No Tails."
|
|